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Havent gamed on linux for a while but at one point half Life and UnReal Tournbament played very well under wine as did some others, one game however blew the hell out of my x server, so hopefully things have improved since then.

Unreal Tournament can be installed natively, there is an installer for it, no need for wine. Installers for all versions up to 2004 version. Not for latest release tho.

... and running ubuntu from the live CD! Back with Windows, even the desktop would case my internal fan to start humming, though it wouldn't scream away unless I was gaming with something graphic intensive. The live CD for ubuntu? I'm not sure if the fan's even ON. And the case remains quite cool. I like it already!

Good news of a sort! I've made much progress! The install works now! I can now boot from the hard disk with no recovery prompt! The last bug preventing me from a HD boot to desktop is the black screen. No problem, I know to use nomodeset. Problem is, I can't get to any kind of options to make that change before it hits the desktop. I kid you not, my m17x blows through that part so fast I can't do it.

So, I'm on live CD again. Can someone walk me through making the change from here? I'd appreciate it!

Already made progress there hehe. CTRL-ALT-F1 to drop to prompt. F7 to return.

The problem I'm currently on is the system doesn't seem to see my monitor attached to my laptop. It does see my card correctly, and I can get the resolutions I expect. The monitor is my curse right now heh.

Holds on, no need to leave X, you should have a wee alert in the system bar telling you restricted drivers are available, this will install the nvidia drivers for your, maybe wifi as well. No need to drop out of X.

Once you have reconfigured /etc/X11/xorg.conf (the restricted package should do this anyway) you need to restart X, probably easy to reboot.

The /etc directory is analogous to the windows registry, except it is largely in plain language.

I got the graphics drivers in, and they appear to be working. Two issues remain, however.

The m17x actually has three graphics GPUs. First, the onboard "power saver" chipset, which it is using now. Then, the dual 280Ms in SLI mode that it sees but isn't using, and I can't seen to enable it.

Hrm. I got some instruction how to fix the graphics end of things, but I need to be able to ctrl-alt-F1 to exit out of X server and get to prompt. But when I do it, it blackscreens on me, though I can alt-F7 to get back to X server. That's the puzzle I work on now.

Hrm. I got some instruction how to fix the graphics end of things, but I need to be able to ctrl-alt-F1 to exit out of X server and get to prompt. But when I do it, it blackscreens on me, though I can alt-F7 to get back to X server. That's the puzzle I work on now.

If all else fails you can try to boot to runlevel 3 immediately. Just append a '3' to your bootoptions. Runelevel 3 is by and large the same as runlevel 5 without X.

Another alternative may be to just log out, and at the login screen ... No idea how precisely this works on Ubuntu. Does Alt+N do anything? I get a console log-in.

Or kill the X server with 2x Crtl+Alt+Backspace. But it'll probably just restart and drop you at the graphical login screen.

ETA: 2x Crtl+Alt+Backspace is something you might wish to try when you get a black screen that you describe anyway. Else Magic SysRq Keys is better that a hard reboot.

Hrm. I got some instruction how to fix the graphics end of things, but I need to be able to ctrl-alt-F1 to exit out of X server and get to prompt. But when I do it, it blackscreens on me, though I can alt-F7 to get back to X server. That's the puzzle I work on now.

If you had taken heed of my earlier advice you would have been enjoying hassle-free linux for a week now.

I've been using Unity as my primarily shell for the past week, in Ubuntu 11.04's current beta (fully updated). This is a probably boring description of my impressions and some ways it could be improved. I could suggest the changes through launchpad, which I haven't used for that type of thing. I haven't done it yet due to concerns that I would do something wrong.

I like it when a window is maximised because it combines the panel, the menu bar and the title bar into the one bar. This is very good for saving space and I like it when I'm just browsing the internet with one maximised window. Seeing the indicators apparently within the title bar is like the wingpanel idea.

Maximising also makes the launcher (dock) disappear, which is good for saving space but I want to be able to see what I have open. I would like to have the option to not have the launcher autohide to solve this. Or have some other indication in the panel.

When I have multiple windows of the same program open, clicking on the icon for it on the launcher makes all of its windows visible similar to how GNOME Shell does when pointing to the top left, except the only possible interaction with the windows in this mode is selecting the one you want. IIRC, in GNOME Shell you can press buttons on them in this mode. It should be changed to allow that to happen. If I want to close one of them, I need to select it first.

Also, the menus (of the menu bar) are hidden behind the title when a window is maximised unless the cursor is over the title area so it's a bit of guesswork where to point the cursor. It's no longer a beeline to Tools, but an "L" with a change of direction around Help or Bookmarks. But this isn't something I really notice.

When a window is not maximised, the menus are over the name of the program (it looks like "Firefox We[fades out] File Edit"....). that's not the title bar, as each window has its own when minimised. The global menu is of course disassociated from the window when it is not maximised. You have to select a window for that program's menus to show there, which is an annoyance when there are several windows on the screen.

The overlay scrollbar has grown on me. It would be improved if the control would be able to appear not just where the narrow scroll position indicator is, but anywhere along where it can be. It matters because if you click on the controls, it scrolls accordingly and keeps the controls still as it should, but if you move the cursor slightly away, you can't just move it back to where it was a second ago and find the controls appearing again. You have to move to the scroll position marker. Also, some default applications have the old scroll bar. Firefox and Gwibber, at least. It looks unprofessional to have different scroll bars.

Also, I have the Dust Sand theme and my close/minimise/maximise buttons look completely different when maximised.

At any one time I might have a terminal open, a web browser, a text editor, a pdf file etc. Especially if I'm doing development. From what I've seen there is no easy and intuitive way to quickly switch between programs with the mouse like you can with a bar along the bottom which shows all your open apps and folders.

__________________May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. - Edward Abbey

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. - John Muir

Think it'd have trouble seeing the monitor I got plugged in? Ubuntu seemed to want to have nothing to do with it. That, and it's a m17x alienware laptop. Three GPUs. The onboard for low power mode, and dual 280Ms in SLI mode. Getting the SLI and the monitor working was my biggest problem before.